Sermons Based on the Lectionary of the Church

Role of the Church

Rev. Fr. Thomas Ninan, South Africa

Devotional Thoughts for 3rd Sunday After Pentecost

Gospel Reading: John 6 : 35 – 46

This passage narrative following the feeding of the 5000 by Jesus has profound
significance for our daily lives, both at a personal level as well as towards
discerning the role of the Church in this world. The unique significance of this
passage, dealt only by St. John’s Gospel among the four gospels, is that it
forms the core message of the Eucharistic or Sacramental theology in the Bible.
In simple terms, what this means is that, it bears the purpose and the
background of the Holy Eucharist that the Church celebrates today, as the centre
of Christian spirituality or specifically Orthodox spirituality. This implies
that Holy Qurbana becomes the centre of our life or in other words, Holy Qurbana
becomes the means or the lens by which our whole life progresses in this world.
This is not just at a personal level, where we discern Holy Qurbana to be the
life giving bread which becomes an answer to our hunger and the life giving
water, which becomes an answer to our thirst, but it also has implications on
the political, social structures or systems that exist within the Church and in
the world, to be according to the kingship of God/Christ and not of the world.

When we recognize this passage as foundational to the Holy Eucharist, it also
becomes in many ways the climax of what the Old Testament Bible, i.e. the Law,
the Prophets and the Wise have been saying about the characteristics of God’s
reign on earth. Signs of such characteristics are visible among the early
Israelites in Judges during the era of Prophet Samuel and in the early Church
when the early believers gathered together as a koinonia. The key feature
noticeable in both examples cited is the divine attitude of the people of God to
share their resources with each other, to specifically recognize the weak, the
poor and share their resources with them. Whenever the people of Israel moved
away from such a system, the prophets in different times warned them to be
moving away from the character and will of God or rather from God’s justice.
Whenever the motives of the people of Israel was to gather a surplus for
themselves at the cost of the poor, the warning was pretty clear from the
prophets and the Bible is clear in calling this as sin, “hamartia,” “missing the
mark,” moving away from the will of God.

The background of this passage reflects a gathering of 5000 people around Jesus,
a big number indeed for that region, who were people mostly suffering from
extreme poverty, amidst other problems like illnesses (long term and short
term), disabilities etc. is a grave indicator to the vast difference between the
rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots of that time. To limit this
background to just a charity event, such as that dealt within all the other
three gospels with their short narratives of the “feeding passage” is to miss
the long term implications which St. John here beautifully narrates in chapter
6.

The question of Jesus in Jn. 6:5,

“Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” lays the context to the whole
chapter of Jesus’ discourse about the “bread of life.” As we notice, it is not
because Christ didn’t know the answer to this question but rather, He implied a
human participation and response to this challenge. Poverty brings with itself
many other problems of human suffering, just to name a few here – hunger, abuse,
low self esteem, conflict, stealing etc. If we notice, beginning from the sermon
on the Mount, the crowd which followed Jesus closely have been the poor. Hence,
one needs to bring the Beatitudes as well here to really understand what Christ
implied by the question in vs.5 and by calling himself “the bread of life.”

The use of “we” in the question implies to Christ and his disciples who were
placed amidst a crowd facing extreme poverty, with their numerous problems and
questions. Christ is not implying how much money do they have in their pocket to
feed these, for even if they had the money to feed the crowd, can money really
satisfy or restore healing to the problems the people faced? Rather He is asking
the question, what do we really have to feed these? He is not implying whether
we have something extra, or a 10% to spare or even do a onetime charity as the
word “where” is directed to the core of one’s heart or even an attitude to share
what we have, our time, our life, our resources, to find an answer to the
everyday problems of these people and this needs to be translated in terms of
the following :-

i. How closely do we see the pain and suffering of the poor around us?

ii. What can we do to give the poor a sustainable livelihood, a life of dignity
and restore their self esteem?

iii. Are we able to bring to His table, what we really have, our resources, our
whole being?

All the above questions need to be reflected both at a personal level and at a
parish level especially in the context of large scale poverty that prevails in a
world where one fourth of its population have as much resources as three fourth
of the population. Poverty is not just not having money, as the following
definition captures :-

“Poverty is not knowing where your next meal is to come from, and always
wondering when the council is going to put your furniture out and always praying
that your husband must not lose his job.” (Mrs. Witbooi, quoted in Wilson &
Ramphele 1989:14)

It is in this context that Christ says,

“I am the bread of life. Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who
believe in me will never be thirsty.” Jn.6:35

The implication for those who followed Him, after carrying the left over twelve
extra baskets of bread after the feeding miracle, is more serious in sharing the
life giving bread to the world suffering in hunger. Those twelve baskets of leftovers come to us through the Holy Qurbana we partake in. For me and you, who
partake of this bread of life, the following questions (as asked by Jerry Folk
in Doing Theology doing Justice, 1991:67) are worth reflecting :-

1. Who is Jesus Christ for us today and what light does he shed on our total
life experience in the world?

2. How does our understanding of God, the world and ourselves, to which Jesus
leads us, transform our relationships, attitudes, priorities, commitments and
engagements in the world?

3. In the light of the above, what is our calling as Christians and the mission
of the Church in today’s world?

Much is possible when Christ is at the centre of our life, which we strive to
experience through the Holy Qurbana. In order to bring others to Christ, we
ourselves need to come to Christ first, daily committing ourself to the One who
gives life, life giving bread and water. It is only by this synergy that we can
truly endeavor to relish the answers we try to give for the above questions.

It is important to note here that those who came to Christ were empowered, not
financially, but they were filled and satisfied, with strength to continue in
their difficult world. We may not have all the solutions to the problems of this
world, but we are asked to be in the centre of it. Christ, the life giver calls
us, not to run away from problems, our own and those around us, but to feed on
Him, to lean on Him. The community that came to Christ were challenged to love
and care like Christ, to relish the beauty of sharing the little they had, to
lean on Him for their uncertain future. The transformation at hand was indeed
too challenging, that is why many of His followers in Jn.6: 60 felt,

“This teaching is too hard. Who can listen to it?”

As the early believers later found out, that the Risen Lord, the Life giving
Spirit and the sacramental participation of the sharing of the bread of life had
a unique meaning to their daily life, we are called towards this mystic reality
of transformation, personally and as a community, through the Holy Qurbana.

May the Holy Spirit continue to guide us towards relishing this reality.